Something To Think About Archive

According to Stanford University founding president David Starr Jordan, “Wisdom is knowing what to do next, skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.”

The recent forest fires in eastern Canada that blanketed the northeast with smoke due to a freak weather pattern should be a wakeup call to American lawmakers who, like Chuck Schumer, immediately claim that “climate change” was the sole cause of this health and environment issue when better forest management is the real answer. Having suppressed forest fires that naturally manage the forests while at the same time dramatically curtailing good forest management practices like logging, clearing the forest floor and replanting has grossly exacerbated the danger. It’s time for politicians to quit playing politics and allow forest professionals to do their jobs before we lose even more of our natural resources to fire.

Learn from the past, live in the present, plan for the future.

One of the original “One-percenters” John D. Rockefeller believed that “… every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.”

Benjamin Franklin said: “If a man could have half his wishes he would double his troubles.”

“There is a great man who makes every man feel small;” G.K. Chesterton once observed. “But the great man is the man who makes every man feel great.”

Pioneering retail businesswoman leader Hortense Odlum believed that “One of the greatest satisfactions one can ever have, comes from the knowledge that he can do some one thing superlatively well.”

The recent decision regarding continued funding for Visit Tuolumne County, the one organization dedicated to tourism which is a linchpin of the county’s economy, is problematic. While visitors to the area do stress our resources like roads, traffic and public safety to some extent, areas that require better funding by the county, they also generate some $8 million in TOT revenue to the county which now retains 82% of those monies. More visitors may equal more demands on the county but as the TOT revenue increases as a result, there will be more money available for those same resources that require funding with or without tourists. Cutting the funding of the one key marketing organizations could be cutting that source of revenue as well.

In his authorized biography, “First Man,” Neil Armstrong notes that “I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.”

Seneca said: “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

As Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle once noted, “Speech is silver, silence is golden.”

Gerald Ford said: “Never be satisfied with less than your very best effort. If you must strive for the top and miss, you’ll still beat the pack.”

According to inspirational author Greenville Kleiser, “Men who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others idled, have persevered when others gave up in despair, have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of purpose.”

Calvin Coolidge said: “Patriotism is easy to understand in America: it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.”

About open-mindedness George Bernard Shaw once observed that “Those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything.”

The Roman poet Martial wrote: “Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.”

Journalist and cultural critic H.L. Mencken said: “Life demands to be lived.”

“Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.” — George S. Patton

Edward Gibbon “The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest seamen.”

When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. – Ronald Reagan